Most cows in Nigeria are not for milk says expert

 Maize farmers debunk losses

The Country Director, Business Innovative Facility (BIF), Mr. Soji Apampa has said that most cows in the country were not meant for milk production just as maize farmers in Nigeria has denounced ever recording losses .

Apampa stated this during an interactive session on agricultural value chains of dairy and maize that the inefficient feeding pattern of our cows have resulted to a limited competitive market for animal milk production saying the Napier grass nutrition would scale up the gap in its production from 300,000 litres per year to 1.4 million along with other improved technologies that could give more commercial production.

According to him ‘’most of the cows milked in the country are meant for beefing and not milking, as many of the cows do not eat the right grass that is capable of enriching them to compete with cows in other countries that are doing well’’. He advised dairy farmers to adopt the use of Napier grass in animals feeding for its nutrient and energy to enhance more milk.

He continued that BIF in Nigeria has focused on improving the livelihood of 160,000 households with the sum of E25million for the period of 5years period, and is expected to end by August 2019 saying that the project is focused on five markets with more emphasis on the pastoralist women who were the poorest dependants on milk economy.     

 The Kano Dairy and Livestock Husbandry Cooperative Union, Alhaji Usman A. Usman confirming to  foodfarmnews that the coming of BIF to Kano state has impacted more into the lives of the poor dairy farmers saying they have been able to aggregate themselves into a cooperative, and also learnt new method of increasing and adding value to our milk.

According to him ‘’we use to practice the wrong way of hitting the milk by doing it directly, but we have learnt better now to hit our milk by using the backdoor heating process which has impacted greatly on our production, as we have been able to save some litre of milk that usually got wasted while using the former method where we always loss two litres of milk before the arrival of BIF’’.

Usman who said the cooperative has acquired 20million cooling system for milk preservation hammered on the need for further embracement of Napier grass for its nutrition characteristics to upscale the 300,000 annual productions to 1.4 million litres per annual adding that the grass is tested and certified as being good by his group and other pastoralists in Kano state.

Also, the consultant to the Kano Dairy and Livestock Husbandry Cooperative Union, Dr. Ayok Celestine noted that the event was important to bring to the notice of stakeholders the importance of the Napier grass to the growth and fast development of cow milk across the nation, saying that the grass nutrition to the animal would increase milk production automatically by 2 litres with good health and energy to produce competitive milk for human consumption.

Meanwhile, the maize association of Nigeria, Kaduna state chapter, Alhaji Mohammed Saliyu Kabiru has debunked the rumour going around about loss of profit by his members saying the production level of maize has increased from 8 million tonnes of 2013-2015 to presently 20 million metric tons annually

 He pointed that the maize farmers are able to start making lots of produce because of the determination of the present government to ensure total stoppage of maize importation saying this was sorted out during a visit to President chief of Staff.

 The chairman stressed that with the current increase in the production of maize across the country it is believed that there will be price stability saying that farmers are rational business people.